Just Cause 2! a Heck of a lot of Fun?

Hiya peeps, i bought this on saturday morning at 9:30 AM and what can i say, its really really fun, i've racked up 16 hours on it just this weekend.

the amount of stuff you can do is litterally endless and the various millions ways to cause destruction is amazing.

the story line and cutscenes really are paper thin in this so no need to waste time on actually wondering why your doing all this, but i don't see the need for a fully intergrated and well thought out story as it's more about boredom killing with unrealistic moves and crazy out of this world stunts.

your imagination is the limit, ever fancied towing a car with a plane well now you can. ever fancied hitting a massive ramp in a car jumping onto the roof and going crazy with a rocket launcher, well nows your chance.

even better if you have a ps3 or pc version, you can press start at any time and then selct video capture it has 2 modes 1 is 30 seconds of filming for those crazy quick stunts or you can set it 10 mins and do a movie style action sequance, then simply click and upload to youtube in a flash to show off your moves.

the controls on this game feel so easy you'll be sky diving, driving and causing chaos in no time.
the environment is beautiful and alive however there isn't that much traffic and pedestrians around so you may have to get creative with the military goons instead.

the map is huge to say the least alive with many towns, villages, cities and military bases ready and waiting for you to rain down the destruction.

theres not a huge amount of guns to mess around with but that doesn't matter to much as you have a handy grapple hook which can easily dispatch foes left right and centre, espescially if you use the environment, such as attaching a guard to a passing car and watching them get dragged away to their death.

this game embodies nearly everything i wanted from GTA 4, where as GTA 4 was a huge dissappointment to me and felt like a step backwards, i feel just cause 2 has recaptured the fun that san andreas brought us but now its in HD.

like open worlds, like chaos, like screaming foes and big explosions then buy it, it's the most fun you will have for a while.

Re: Just Cause 2! a Heck of a lot of Fun?

I bought Just Cause 2 on friday. But first, an admittion: I never really played any GTA other than the first. So I have very little basis for comparasson.

The developers of JC2 claim that it is made as a bad B Movie - cheesy punchlines, overly dramatic explosions, odd physics. Either they succeeded in this, or it is simply a ruse to hide up seriously bad voice acting.

The story is really movie classic: You have to find your old mentor, who is hiding on an island, and to find him you have to go undercover and work for various factions. B Movie cliche, i suppose. The factions offer little difference, other than the areas they control, and while most missions differ (a LOT), every introduction to general missions is the same - someone drives up to you, dumps a weapon crate, sais a line, and drives away. This is constant with all factions, and with all faction missions. The same goes for "stronghold takeovers", where you help a faction increase their influence. These missions - and there are one for each three faction everytime they want to expand, are identical: You talk shortly with the leader, you go into a chopper, you are put down next to a base (although a different one), and you have to storm the base and protect a technician. When he's done, you are done.

The stronghold takeovers and the introduction to faction missions are mindbloggingly boring. I can't believe it is all the same, and I find myself skipping and trying to just "get it over with".

THANKFULLY, all this is just a very small part of the game. Aside from the Stronghold Takeovers, there are many faction missions for each faction, and while the INTRODUCTION to these missions is dull, the missions aren't. They vary a lot; From hunting down a journalist by motorcycle or shooting down helicopters with a bazooka, to transporting a whore in a pink limousine or disarming bombs around the city. The faction missions vary a lot and are a lot of fun.

The game is also LITTERED with races, either by car, boat, plane or - get this - falling. You generally just have to go through the hoops in a long course through the city, but planes are difficult to fly, cars have to dodge other vehicles, boats has a lot of ground to cover and falling - where you combine basejumping and using your parachute to float through the city without any plane or without touching the ground. Races are many, and very fun.

Lastly, there are agency missions - where you move the story along. They are kind of fun, and will pit you against mafia bosses with satelite missiles or a trio of phasewalking ninjas. Yes, ninjas.

The graphics are quite awesome, and the island you are on is huge. I mean, really huge, and varies between beaches and cities to mountains with snowcapped peaks or small villages. The whole island is littered with small settlements, lots of vehicles and the odd military base or airport. Airports are, ofcourse, the most fun place to visit, as you can grab a plane at will and fly wherever you want. You can extract to any location you have seen before, but a plane is faster than driving around in car. God, if you had to drive to each location, it would take ages.

I recorded a video the other day. Nothing special, just messing around. It shows an air race first, then me standing on a plane as it takes off, and me trying to land it (with great succes, i might add!) and finally, a bit of fun with a jet. You probably wont, but try to enjoy :P http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50d5Lc4J4s. The video should, at least, give you a little bit of an idea of how big this island is. You still only see a small part of it. Audio seems to be a bit off too, hmm.

Bottom line is, I am very much enjoying JC2. You may not if you are married to GTA, but as an open world game, it gives me great pleasure :P

~ Armory - Youtube ~
No longer the King of Moonkins, but perhaps the Prince of Shamans?

Re: Just Cause 2! a Heck of a lot of Fun?

is there variation tho? i mean after the first couple hours does it feel redundant? i have red faction which people say is sort of similar and it was pretty cool at first knocking down everything and all of the vehicles but the sandbox was extremely repetitive. same with Prototype, one of the biggest recent wastes of money i've blown. Just Cause2 sounds great but i'm afraid it'll get redundant just like those games did after the first few hours of destruction in the sandbox.

Re: Just Cause 2! a Heck of a lot of Fun?

I rented it. Beat it with about 20 hours put into the game. My overall completion after I beat the final Agency Mission was 30%, and I by no means just blew through the story. The island is huge and there's lots to blow up.

Re: Just Cause 2! a Heck of a lot of Fun?

i feel your pain with prototype, but however the missions in prototype where pretty samey and overly repetative. in some ways it does feel similar but the missions in Just cause 2 feel alot more varied than prototypes missions.

i'm at 27 hours into Just cause now and i have only done 4 main story missions and a butt ton of faction missions, it doesn't feel redundant to me yet, however i'm still exploring, learning new techniques and generally having fun doing stuff that i've never seen in a game.

if your worried about it being a waste of money just hold out till it hits a sale, which will be soon i think, many stores put there new releases into the sale after about a month or so and you may pick it up for £20 and that would be well worth it. as it happens thats all it cost me on day after release, it's killed WOW, Pokemon and BF:BC2 for me, this week at least

also whilst playing last night i noticed there is a lot of planes flying around so i got up to one and stunt jumped on to it to see where it went, it turns out they just fly out to sea eventually, i was amazed at how far it goes, i managed to get 100km away from the shore whilst being flown by a in game npc and even that far out there is still boats around, fish in the sea and plenty going on.

also i played around with the video capture some more and it's brilliant, never missing that insane stunt you pull off, or want to report a glitch or show off something odd just set it up and off you go it takes 1 press of a button and your off, then post it and let your mates marvel at your genius ideas for fun